the first wave of legal online music services had too many restrictions, including limited streaming and copy-protected downloads. so the question is: will more freedom tempt listeners to ditch their file-sharing apps and pay a monthly fee for the latest tunes? we're about to find out. aol enters the second-wave music-download arena with its new musicnet service, which offers three plans: for $3.95 per month, you can stream 20 songs and download 20 copy-protected tracks; $8.95 per month gets you unlimited streaming and copy-protected downloading; and $17.95 per month lets you burn 10 songs, in addition.

fullaudio corp. aims to tempt music lovers by greatly revamping musicnow for this second version. a premium plan for $4.95 per month gives access only to the service's 36 online radio channels. a full access plan at $9.95 per month adds unlimited copy-protected downloads and lets you purchase burnable downloads for 99 cents each. musicnow's à la carte approach is much more convenient than musicnet's one-size-fits-all philosophy. judging by apple's recent music service launch, which offers only song purchases and has no membership rate, à la carte music shopping may be the wave of the future.

those signing up for fullaudio's musicnow will need to download the software, which runs inside microsoft windows media player. it's a convenient solution, since downloaded songs are instantly merged with the others in your existing music library. but restricted and unrestricted downloads look the same, so you have no way of knowing which songs you can burn to a disc and which you can't. also, windows 98 users are stuck with windows media player's kludgy cd-burning tool.

one nuisance you'll encounter with aol's musicnet sign-up is that only aol master account holders can purchase the service, not sub-account holdersa hassle for the many people sharing aol accounts. once someone with a master aol account signs up though, all the sub-account holders can use the service. oddly enough, musicnet doesn't work within aolyou need to download a separate client. you can listen to downloaded songs while off-line but must log on to aol to do anything more.

Music Services, Round Two

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About the Author

Troy Dreier is a technology writer and editor based in Jersey City, NJ. He’s the editor of OnlineVideo.net, senior associate editor for StreamingMedia.com, and a former staff editor for PC Magazine. He’s @tdreier on Twitter.

Music Services, Round Two

Music Services, Round Two

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